Times Union Staff Photo by Skip Dickstein -- Exterior view of LLENROC, in Crescent, New York June 4, 2002, the former estate of the late Al Lawrence is being put up for sale.

(SKIP DICKSTEIN)

Times Union Staff Photo by Skip Dickstein -- Exterior view of...

Llenroc, the late Al Lawrenece's mansion,Friday afternoon December 18, 2009. The property just sold for $1.9 million, a fraction of the $12 million realtors originally wanted to sell it for. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Llenroc, the late Al Lawrenece's mansion,Friday afternoon December...

Insurance magnate Albert Lawrence's one-time home, Llenroc on River Road in Clifton Park's Rexford section, has sold for $1.9 million, a fraction of the $12 million asking price put on the mansion when it went on the market in 2007. (File photo)

Llenroc, the mansion owner by the late Albert Lawrence, as seen Friday afternoon. The property just sold for $1.9 million, a fraction of the $12 million real estate agents originally wanted to sell it for. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Llenroc, the mansion owner by the late Albert Lawrence, as seen...

Times Union Staff Photo byTom Palmer --Photo of 'Llenroc,' the home of Al and Barbara Lawrence in Rexford, NY, taken from the Mohawk River in the summer of 1999.

ALBANY — Annie George tearfully told jurors Wednesday she was a battered wife whose late husband made every important decision during the time she allegedly forced a fellow Indian immigrant to work as an illegal servant.

"I don't want to talk about it — please!" George testified at her federal trial in Albany.

Pressed by her attorney, George said her late husband's abuse sent her to the hospital on three occasions for injuries to her head and other areas.

George, 40, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted in U.S. District Court of harboring an illegal alien for financial gain.

The revelation of alleged domestic abuse could be key to George's defense as it could lead jurors to conclude George had no role in deciding to employ the servant. It surfaced on a day when George also testified she treated her former worker like "family" — and kept her from living in squalor in India.

"She could have left any time," George told the jury.

Federal prosecutors say George's ex-servant, Valsamma Mathai, 49, worked illegal 17- to 18-hour shifts with no time off and no sick leave in three homes for the Georges, the last being the 30,000-square-feet Llenroc mansion in Rexford, where she slept in a closet.

Prosecutors say Mathai's visa, issued to her in 1998, allowed her to work for her previous employer in Manhattan — not George's family, for whom she ended up working for five-and-a-half years.

George, who moved to America in 2001, repeatedly broke into tears when testifying about her late husband, Mathai Kolath George, who was killed along with the couple's eldest of six children, George Kolath Jr., in a private plane crash in the Mohawk River in June 2009.

George said the death of her husband crushed her emotionally and financially; he owned six motels, all of which are now closed, bankrupt or in foreclosure. She said she constantly deals with creditors and nonstop pressure from in-laws.

Under further questioning from her attorney, Mark Sacco, George's voice shook as she reluctantly revealed the abuse from the man she wed in an arranged marriage.

"Were you allowed to make any significant decisions?" Sacco asked.

"No," George replied.

"Why not?" Sacco asked.

"Because it's George's (house)," she answered.

"Because you're a ... ?" Sacco pressed.

"Woman," George responded.

"And how did you learn it, Annie?" Sacco asked.

George paused for what seemed like several minutes, wiped away tears and eventually said, "Had to go to hospital."

"Why did you have to go to the hospital? Sacco asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," she answered.

"Well, you need to," Sacco replied.

"Were you ever hit?" Sacco asked.

"Yes," George replied.

"By your husband?" Sacco asked.

"Yes," she answered.

"And why?" Sacco asked.

"If I ever interfere in his decisions," George answered, crying.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Belliss objected to the line of questioning, telling Chief U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe it was an obvious attempt by the defense to elicit sympathy from the jury. Sharpe did eventually cut off Sacco from continuing to show the wife's state of abuse.

George said she never knew Mathai did not have a visa. She said Mathai was nicknamed "grandmother" by her children, with whom she shared a close bond.

George said Mathai was never given a list of assignments to do and had her own bedroom in the first two homes in which she worked.

"I treated her like family, like my mother was in my home," George testified.

Sacco asked: "Annie George, did you harbor Valsamma Mathai?"

"I did not," George answered.

"Did you keep her locked up in your house away from authorities?"

"I did not," George answered.

"Did you keep her from living in the squalor of Mumbai?" "I did," George answered.

Mathai testified Tuesday that she began work for the Georges in October 2005 after she was approached in Manhattan by a fellow Indian immigrant who told her of an opportunity for a good job and good money. At the time, Mathai worked in Manhattan as a legal servant for Rahul Sur, an Indian citizen who works as the chief of peacekeeping evaluation at the United Nations. She said she joined the man and agreed to marry him, but he took her to a Catskill home where she ended up working for the George family.

George testified she met Mathai around October 2005 when a pastor arrived with the woman and asked her husband and her if they could help Mathai out. The pastor said Mathai had been dumped by a man and had no place to go, she recalled.

"He was telling my husband how he wanted a place for her," George testified. "She stayed with us and helped us out.

George said there was never an arrangement to pay Mathai $1,000 a week, adding: "She wanted a shelter. She wanted a safe haven."

Earlier Wednesday, David Gerrain, assistant director of the Wage and Hour Division for the U.S. Department of Labor, testified that Mathai should have earned $317,144 while working for George's family between October 2005 and May 2011.

Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Daria Botten, who worked Mathai's case, testified that she could only find $21,000 paid to Mathai for her work over her 66 months of employment.